Spanish

This time last year I was in Spain investigating locations to film High Five Spanish. This trip took me to Málaga, Ronda, Nerja, Almuñécar, Granada and Alicante. We decided to film the series in Nerja and Frigiliana and, five trips later, the Spanish footage is complete. There’s still a big edit job to do before launching next spring. During my recce trip, exactly one year ago this morning, I was discovering the Alhambra for the first time on a perfect autumn morning.

It seemed appropriate therefore today to play Recuerdos de la Alhambra, the beautiful piece for guitar by Francisco Tárrega. It’s not really meant for piano, so I’ve tried to come up with an orchestration that works. I hope you enjoy this today!

We’ve spent the last 10 days in one of my favourite places in the world, the sunny island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean. I discovered that Albéniz wrote a piece for guitar named Mallorca which guitarist John Williams described as “a piece depicting a mysterious, beautiful island with a Moorish influence”. There’s an alternative version for piano and solo instrument, so I’ve used this version and performed a “duet with myself”, overdubbing the solo part. I hope you enjoy this piece today.

Today I’m playing a beautiful Spanish piece of music known as La Paloma (“the dove”). It was written by Basque composer Sebastián Iradier in 1863 after he visited Cuba and is in the Habanera style. Among many recordings of this song are English versions (called No More) by Dean Martin and Elvis Presley and the song entered the Guiness Book of World Records in 2004 as the song performed by the largest choir: 88,600 people joined together in Hamburg to sing it!

This is another of those songs that may not be very well known – Juanes’ No Siento Penas. It’s an album track from the very popular 2004 Mi Sangre album, but as soon as I heard the song I loved it. It has a very catchy, happy chorus and since the title of the song is “I have no regrets” (or more literally “I have no pain”) then it all seems to fit! Here’s the original if you’d like to have a listen.

I’m in Spain today, starting off a new video project, and I was thinking of a Spanish language song to play. I’ve ended up choosing not a Spanish song, but a US/Cuban song by Gloria Estefan, Con Los Años Que Me Quedan, “with the years I have left”. It’s a beautiful song in the bolero style with some fantastic chord progressions, and I hope I’ve done it justice. Here’s a live performance of Gloria Estefan singing the song if you’re interested. Her version is better than mine, of course!

I’m just back from a week working in Spain so I thought I’d play something Spanish today. I first heard Piensa en mí in the 1991 Almodóvar film Tacones Lejanos (High Heels) which I saw while studying in Spain. In the film it was performed by Luz Casal. It’s a gorgeous song originally written in 1935 by Mexican king of the bolero Agustín Lara. I hope you enjoy this song today.

This is my version of Tango in D by Isaac Albéniz. It’s a beautiful piece of music which was originally written as part of the España suite for piano, and then later transcribed for guitar. I’m dedicating this song today to my mum as it’s Mother’s Day and I know she loves this piece of music!